Capitalism is unstable, capitalism is unequal, and capitalism is fundamentally undemocratic.
I want people to make their own choices about how they live their lives, the professions they lead,
where they want to work, and what they do. And capitalism offers that potential.
Slavery it did it with masters and slaves, feudalism did it with lords and serfs,
capitalism does it with employers and employees.
Capitalism, private property, is necessary although not sufficient to a free and open society.
Please come up to the stage debaters two young men in the prime of their lives, Richard Wolff, who will be
who will be defending the proposition socialism is preferable to capitalism as an economic system
that promotes freedom equality and prosperity.
Gene Epstein will be taking the negative on that. Each candidate, the way this will work
is that each debater will have 17 and a half minutes, and that last thirty seconds
when it comes you'll understand why it's there, but each of them will have 17 minutes and 30 seconds
to lay out an initial case. They'll do five minutes each of rebuttal.
I'm gonna beat them up a little bit with a moderators prerogative on some questions,
then we're gonna open it up to 30 minutes or more of audience Q&A.
Five minutes each of closing statements—seven and a half and again those 30 seconds,
you know this is where the world changes in those 30 seconds,
and then we will take another vote, and we'll see who is the big winner.
Gene could you please—and if you haven't voted yet, you've got about five seconds to go.
Please make a vote. Either vote for the proposition, against it, or undecided.
You need to vote now in order to vote later. And without further ado let's have Richard Wolff come up
and explain to us why socialism is preferable to capitalism
as an economic system that promotes freedom, equality, and prosperity.
Richard Wolff you have the stage.
Thank you all for coming I assume that socialism is the reason
that you came either for it or against it and I hope that the things I have to
say will make some sense of it for you I did want to comment on the notion that
Reason magazine is free and that the understanding Marxism book costs money
and I want to urge you not to invert from the price what the values of these
things are that would be a mistake it would be confusing the price with the
value and for those of you that know something about socialist theory that's
something you want to avoid okay
socialism preferable to capitalism my basic argument is that's a very low bar
that's not asking much and I want to make that case as strongly as I know how
but I have a problem in the very beginning as I always do traveling
around this country talking about this and that is we are like bears in this
country coming out of a hibernation about seventy years of it since 1945
when everything changed from in a society in which socialists communists
Marxists occupied all the normal positions in society as teachers and
workers and bureaucrats and unionists when we had a new deal that celebrated
many of the objectives socialists have always supported it is across the United
States had a big picture over the war the clerk's office where you bought
stamps and there was Uncle Sam with his hat arm and arm with Uncle Joe which
stood for Joseph Stalin
after that there was not so surprisingly a terrible reaction the business
community and the right-wing in America was horrified that for the 1930s we had
had a program of raising taxes on corporations and the rich in order to
fund the creation for the first time in American history of Social Security
unemployment compensation the first minimum wage and a public employment
project that hired fifteen million people the rich had to pay and the mass
of the Americans got the benefits this was so horrific it freaked out the
forerunners of the Koch brothers and then an alliance with the Soviet Union
finished off whoever wasn't freaked out already
and so in 1945 everything had to be undone New Deal coalition for those of
you who remember your history socialists communists the CIO unions representing
tens of millions of American workers they're the ones that made all that
happen they are the ones that made Roosevelt do all those things and they
had to be defeated and they were the way you break up a coalition is you find the
weakest link or what you can make out to be the weakest link and suddenly
communists and socialists who had been the militants making the 1930s the
greatest unionization period in American history they never had anything like it
before we've never had anything like it since communists had to be transformed
and likewise socialists from the great allies in the war from the great
Vanguard of social programs in the 30s they became agents of a foreign power
likely to be interested in strangling your cat and they had to be driven out
of a unions at nineteen forty-seven taft-hartley driven out of their
teaching jobs driven out of the consciousness
of the American people who were terrorized about being interested in
those things as they have mostly been in the last 40 50 60 70 years a personal
note when I went to college as a young person I was interested in learning
about Marxism and I asked my teachers in the university what course can I take to
learn about Marxism half my teachers explained to me there isn't any nobody
here knows anything about it the other half said oh we know about it but we're
way too scared we're not going to teach you anything about it in my
undergraduate and my graduate years and I majored in economics I'm an economics
professor here's a fact no one ever in any economics course assigned me one
word of Karl Marx is that because he had nothing to teach us don't be silly
they were just afraid 75 years of fear there's nothing smart and nothing
excusable in any of that oh and let me mention since it might be of some
interest to you the three schools I attended were
Harvard Stanford and Yale and if they don't have the courage what can you
expect from Eastern Kentucky so I have a problem to talk to you about socialism
because unless you are a very unusual American and there are some or a
foreigner because the situation is different abroad you don't know much
about socialism or what you do know is 75 years out of date because it's
changed a lot as I'm going to point out to you as I go through the argument ok
let's do it socialists disagree they always have
from the beginning socialism is a product of capitalism it
always was there was no socialism before capitalism came into being
why because capitalism in the French and American revolutions made a big fat
promise when it asked people to leave the feudalism that existed before and
shift over to capitalism it made the promise as in the French Revolution that
capitalism would bring with it liberty equality fraternity and let's add
democracy and prosperity socialism is the movement that recognizes that what
capitalism promised liberty equality fraternity and democracy wasn't
delivered and never was and the socialism is a movement which if it has
anything in common among its different tendencies is a notion that we can do
better than capitalism it's a yearning to do better it's the kind of yearning
slaves had to go beyond slavery or serfs to go beyond feudalism employees and the
people who empathize with them figure we can go better and do better than
capitalism that's what socialism is beyond that socialists agree about three
four floors failures of capitalism and again briefly to go through them but
they're three capitalism is unstable capitalism is unequal and capitalism is
fundamentally undemocratic let me briefly explain unstable every 47 years
in every capitalist country on average there's an economic downturn not due to
nature and not due to war just built into the system it's called the business
cycle because it always comes back millions of people lose work businesses
go out of business a crazy crash you know what it's like if you pick up the
financial press you know we're waiting for the next one to hit this year or
next mr. Trump's biggest worry about being reelected is that it'll happen too
soon he worries as we all do it's an unstable system that's crazy
to live in a Sun stable system if you live with a roommate as unstable as
capitalism you would have moved out long ago what an amazing thing to accept a
system that every four to seven years threatens millions of people with
unemployment lost income interrupted vacation interrupted education lost
mortgage you name it then let's do the next one
inequality Oxfam in England keeps track of these things and the latest number
from them summarizes it all the 80 or 90 richest people in the United States
together excuse me in the world have more wealth than the bottom half of the
population three and a half billion people that's the achievement of
capitalism that kind of distribution if you took away half the wealth of those
eighty to a hundred people guess what they'd still be the richest people in
the world only you'd now have a vast amount of money to deal with the
sickness the lack of education the absence of water the insufficiency of
food of the vast majority of people what an achievement such inequality and now
finally the lack of democracy the part of it you probably know and thought
about is the buying of our political process on display every day everywhere
you all see it you all know it but here's a part of the lack of democracy
you might not have thought about long ago we got rid of kings queens we
decided we didn't need somebody sitting at the top of society telling us all
what to do so that we would all be or let's call it subjects that's what they
called us so we got rid of the kings and queens and we said no you know we can we
run this in a different way this political system we can all get together
we can periodically vote and take steps and collectively make the decisions that
used to be in the hands of the kings and the queens how interesting
we democratized at least a little the politics and what we didn't do was to
democratize the economics so what do we have inside each enterprise a little
king an owner a manager a Board of Directors a king in his Court who run
everything will make all the key decisions what to produce how to produce
where to produce and what to do with the profits everybody in the enterprise
helps to produce if it's too difficult for you to hear me out then it's a sign
that I'm getting to you thanks we're good
please keep going please please hear a professor wolf please respect professor
wolf
we don't have democracy in our workplaces we never did the commitment
to democracy is verbal in this society limited to that voting activity where we
live but not where we work and as adults that's where we spend most of our time
going to work being at work and recuperating from work in the workplace
no democracy at all we do what we're told what we produce belongs to somebody
else and we have no say over what they do with it how this is organized what
the technology is and socialists therefore have said my god we can do
better than capitalism and that's what they want and that's what they agree on
but here's where the disagreements how do you go about it what do you do and we
have a benefit socialists do today we have some experiments that were made in
the 20th century Russia China Cuba and so on and we learned from those
experiments what works and what doesn't what should be pursued and what should
be set aside and so the new socialism and if you're not aware of it that has
to go back to what I said at the beginning you haven't been keeping up
which is hard to do in a society which makes socialism a taboo what has
happened to socialism is a refocusing of itself it's not interested so much in
the state doing things that achieved rapid rates of economic growth true
enough but it also left too much power in the hands of too few people and that
has to be addressed and dealt with which socialists have been doing and the new
focus a new focus of socialism is to do something at the workplace that was
never done to go beyond capitalism in the
organization of the workplace to democratize the workplace to make where
we spend most of our adult lives at work a place where democracy reigns where all
the people who work in an enterprise participate in making the decisions of
what to produce how to produce where to produce and what to do with the profits
because if they all together made those decisions we wouldn't give some people a
hundred and fifty billion dollars and other people have to borrow money to get
their kid through college we wouldn't have the inequality we certainly
wouldn't allow the irrationality of every four to seven year instability
everybody together would choose a technology that isn't dangerous to the
health of all of us at the workplace we could go beyond the capitalism but we
have to have the courage to do what was not yet done not in Roosevelt's New Deal
and not in Russia or China either the transformation at the base of society
into a Democrat eyes workplace that's the new direction of socialism
that's where socialism will be in 21st century that we are now entering
it's a new and a different socialism it has learned from its own earlier
experiences and experiments two little footnotes capitalism did not emerge out
of feudalism all finished in one swell foop did it if you know the history
you'll know that capitalism started in this town in that town in that village
in that area often it didn't last more than a few weeks or a few months
sometimes a few years and then it was crushed by feudalism and they had to
figure out how to survive and they had to get together it took centuries
socialism isn't born all at once either it makes its early experiments it had
won in the Paris Commune in 1870 and then it had some other experiments in
the 20th century that I've mentioned and just like with capitalism you learn from
your experiments how to make it better next time how to correct the mistakes
you made in the project that has animated socialists from the beginning
we can do better than capitalism and there is no reason that the human
progress that took us beyond ancient villages and tribes and slavery and
feudalism should imagine itself to have stopped at this point every other system
was born evolved and died capitalism we know was born and evolved I'll leave it
to your inference as to what it is doing now thank you
right thank you Richard Wolffe follow him follow him on Twitter at at Richard
D wolf with two EPs and now taking the opposite side is Jean Epstein follow him
at Gina at Jean Soho for him Jean Upstate what is he
by the way there are seats up front for people who are in the back and I want to
apologize to professor Wolff for that outburst that was very brewed we don't
run the Scylla forum that way and and thank you for professor Wolff for being
gracious about that well let me start it is a pleasure to share a stage with
Richard Wolff who I consider my alter ego in a parallel universe we both came
of age as socialists in my case from age 1 since my mother was a card-carrying
member of the Communist Party and I have our FBI file to prove it
you could always tell who the FBI agents were in the party because they were the
only ones who paid their dues on time Richard Richard paid his dues by getting
an economics PhD at Yale followed by a career advocating socialism I paid my
dues by evolving into a different kind of radical a bleeding-heart
freedom-loving advocate of capitalism I believe that even the deeply flawed
capitalism we have now heavily distorted by a government interference on behalf
of the powerful is preferable by far to Richard's socialism in promoting freedom
prosperity and equality Richard bears a very heavy burden of
proof because his socialism has never existed
he repudiates my mother's Soviet Union my mother's favorite Cuba he has indeed
called these systems state capitalist I'm glad he's learned from their
mistakes since their mistakes has in fact of course cost the blood of tens of
millions of innocent people he wants the economy as he explains in his book
democracy at work a cure for capitalism he wants the economy reorganized around
workers self-directed enterprises in which employees owned and democratically
run companies and keep the broadly defined profits or surplus that normally
go to the employers I fully support what Richard calls employees becoming
their own employers so long as people freely choose that arrangement Richard
thinks such firms are a substitute for capitalism but there are actually just
another option that capitalism offers nothing about the system of practicing
of protecting property rights of firms in a free market dictates how these
firms must be structured Richard himself has written about the quote varying
kinds and degrees of democracy in the workplace which already exist based on
these cases he observes quote workplace democracy responds to deep needs and
desires unquote but these deep needs and desires
seem to run only skin-deep Richard has written that in today's worker owned
enterprises quote it might be legally possible for worker owners to transform
the enterprise so that they become not only owners but also collectively
directors however he concedes that has very rarely
happened well no doubt it very rarely happens because workers very rarely want
it to happen but the move to workers self-directed enterprises can happen in
the capitalist system if workers do want it to happen start with the fact that
the bottom half of the population accounts for one third of all consumer
spending the bottom four fifths for nearly two-thirds give adding up to
trillions of dollars per year on the investment side there's over a trillion
dollars in labor union pension funds domestically and an estimated forty 40
trillion a worldwide held by living in pension funds all this financial
firepower could be marshaled to make workers self-directed enterprises the
dominant mode of production and it would be true to the 1960s view that radical
change must be implemented by the same people
who seek to be the embodiment of that radical change but being willing
of workers to follow the Marxist playbook is as old as Marxism itself
around 1980 democratic socialists like Michael Harrington and Tom Hayden
advocated a bottom-up socialism similar to Richards but they acknowledged that
without the coercive power of government worker owned enterprises quote are
almost impossible to get off the ground as two of them wrote Richard might argue
that it's okay to use government power to try to jumpstart workers
self-directed firms since government often rigs the game anyway but a Marxist
like Richard should be deeply troubled by the old contradiction of radical
change from below being being implemented by the force of government
from above and beyond that he would use government to socialize finance and the
allocation of labor that's why he and I are taking opposite sides in this debate
he advocates a full-blown form of socialism that will put freedom
prosperity and equality under siege just like the old socialism's did but let's
go all the way with Richard and assume that a socialist political party wins at
the ballot box with two-thirds of the electorate voting for its candidates
since two-thirds is normally interpreted in politics as a mandate the government
makes Richards socialism a reality but voting for a radical idea in a voting
booth is very different from a full and active commitment to that idea so let's
not assume that the 2/3 have anticipated the real consequences of what they voted
for Richard writes that apart from doing our assigned jobs workers would each be
quote democratically and collectively given fully equal participation in
decision-making over their own enterprise and over the broad economy
unquote he adds somewhat ominously quote no one could work without engaging in
both roles there will be a need for financing under
Richard socialism both to create new worker owned companies and to provide
funds for enterprises that want to expand they quote obvious alternative
writes Richard to the existing sources of finance is quote socialized banking
consisting of quote workers self workers self-directed enterprises where workers
and communities affected by bank policies together direct and operate
banks so Richard would shut down the nearly fifty billion raised annually
through crowdfunding and the several hundred billion raised through various
forms of venture capital and Finance is not the only function he would relegate
to the power of politics he also proposes a quote specialized agency that
would quote always know from constant monitoring monitoring which existing
enterprises need more laborers which have registered the wish to commence new
production all the relevant skill and experience requirements and where
effective laborers and enterprises are located unquote he adds that the
agencies reports would be submitted to all workers to aid them in making their
decisions notice that he's talking about knowledge of the relevant skill and
experience of 160 million workers in the US across hundreds of thousands of firms
that's information the specialized agency will quote always know from
constant monitoring from my work experience I can tell Richard that those
constant monitors who keep coming around will be the butt of jokes and the
information they come away with will be superficial when it isn't totally
misleading so in Richards world will be recorded to our assigned jobs attend
meetings about company matters and vote on the outcomes will also have to pour
over the reports of the labor allocation financial agencies and then discuss
their recommendations with many others and vote on those outcomes
I submit that only in a dystopian nightmare can most of us imagine
ourselves spending our waking hours in this way is
since the vote of any of us any one of us can hardly determine the outcome
anyway Richard approvingly uses the 1960s term participatory democracy in
which we each get to participate actively in democratic decision-making
in a 1970 book called after the revolution sociologist Robert Dowell
explained the arithmetic --all unworkability of this idea if each
attendee at a meeting were given just ten minutes to address the issue of
being voted on it would take ten hours to move on to the next issue provided
there were only 60 people at the meeting but let's take this leap and assume the
participatory democracy would be functional many firms seeking to expand
their operations will have to borrow funds from their democratically run
financial agencies while also applying to the democratically run run labor
allocation agency for more workers and these democratically run agencies will
be ruled by the vote of the majority but to pick up on an objection raised by
Atlantic magazine journalist Conor freeters Dorf we might ask how easy will
it be to get the democratically run finance and labor allocation agencies to
support the expansion plans of firms that produce muslim prayer rugs and
quran's and the building of new mosques freeters Dorf goes on to ask would you
prefer a socialist society in which birth control is available if and only
if a majority of workers exercising their democratic control a sense or
would you prefer a society in which private businesses can produce birth
control in part because individuals possess economic rights as producers and
consumers the preferences of a majority of people around them be damned
unquote freedom self question applies to the related issue of freedom of speech
and press would you prefer a socialist society in which dissenting journalism
is available if and only if a majority of workers exercising their democratic
agrees or would you prefer a society in which private enterprises can produce
dissenting journalism the preferences of a majority of people around them be
damned so at best our freedoms would be circumscribed by the tyranny of the
majority but we don't have to press this decisive objection
since the overwhelming likelihood is that elected representatives and their
appointees will have most of the real power there won't be enough hours in the
day for us to even be aware of the thousands of decisions being made each
day on our behalf special interests will form around these
centres of power and as Friedrich I act accurately predicted about conventional
socialism the worst will get on top because power-hungry people are mainly
the ones who end up on top our most beloved living ex President Barack Obama
was called by the New York Times journalist James risen quote the
greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation
unquote as left-wing journalist Glenn Greenwald has pointed out Obama used the
archaic 1917 Espionage Act to prosecute more journalists including James risen
than all previous presidents combined so freedom of speech and press is a fragile
thing constantly being Assent assaulted on all sides and especially by
government if you magnify the reach and power of government under Richards plan
politicians in power can stifle dissent by stealthily denying funds and labor to
enterprises that put out information that government doesn't want published
now take the issue of prosperity take the force that brings prosperity
innovation or what economist Joseph Schumpeter called creative destruction
Richard thinks that as long as people can be offered another job they'll agree
to giving up their current job to allow creative destruction to happen
but since people naturally resist change efforts at major or even minor change
would likely be thwarted by special interests reluctant reluctant to give up
their established positions imagine the response if Steve Jobs
sought funding for a smartphone that would also replace a flashlight a watch
a camera a compass a calculator a recorder CD player and GPS navigator
threatening the industries that turn out those products the pattern of
obstruction will be emboldened by the malla by the knowledge that most new
ideas fail and few succeed in a big way anyway
policies toward imports could make Donald Trump look like a free trader
Wednesday when consumers voted with their dollars to buy Japanese cars
because the cars were better made and lasted longer there was a market in
place that made it hard to stop the imports but in a politicized environment
the threatened industries would find it easy to prevent the foreigners from
selling us the cars the planners will have a perfect excuse for rejecting any
project or proposals they don't like the economic reality of scarcity by
yesterday I mean the fact that what everybody wants always adds up to more
than there is so they can reject proposals they don't like on the
reasonable grounds that the resources are simply not available so freedom and
prosperity would both be under siege in Richards system of socialism on
inequality as Noam Chomsky has pointed out you can find income equality in a
prison where power is quite unequal and political power
will be more unequal than even under a flawed system of capitalism the floor
system we have is preferable by far to what Richard proposes in terms of
freedom prosperity and equality because we have so many avenues of private
funding dis dissident publications like the intercept Jacobin magazine Reason
magazine books like by Richard Wolff and a debate series like the solo forum can
persist because we have private funding and reasonably functionally consumer in
capital markets innovation that brings prosperity can persist and even flourish
and on income inequality the turned toward capitalism in countries like
China and India has lifted hundreds of millions out of grinding poverty and is
therefore meant a narrowing of income inequality globally but I began by
saying this is a flawed system riddled with with crony capitalism Richard
mentioned the instability of the US economy indeed it is unstable
I read Richards analysis and as far as I can understand he believes that the
Great Recession was triggered by the fact that the consumer was tapped out
the consumers could no longer afford what they were buying well if he looks
at the data he'll find that just before the recession happened consumer spending
continued to rise that was in the fourth quarter of 2007 what he ignores what he
ignores was the crony capitalist policy of government through the Federal
Reserve that brought that awful event so I I'm Jean Epstein and I'm here to
recruit you yes we have yes we had a flaw at capitalism but in order to make
it a better capitalism we have to do a lot of radical things including
including reining in the power of the Federal Reserve that does indeed cause a
bank banking cart cartel and brings instability in this economy maybe we can
talk more about those things later on thank you very much
all right
Thank You Jean I've seen the debate is joined now we're going to have five
minutes of rebuttal each gentleman I'll suggest that you say
seated and use hand microphones you want to go to the podium okay we can we
cannot keep these guys down so we won't try Richard you have your option I just
want to remind people of a couple things one is remember that the proposition the
resolution under debate is socialism is preferable to capitalism as an economic
system that promotes freedom equality and prosperity follow Richard Wolff at
Richard d Wolfe with two F's follow Jean Epstein Jean sohe form follow me at Nick
Gillespie follow the sohe form at the so a forum follow Reason magazine at reason
Richard Wolff please you have five minutes to rebut
listening to gene makes me realize that a book that you write is a little bit
like a child that you have you think it's yours and then you watch as it
becomes its own thing and is understood by other people in ways you never
imagined I cannot recognize 3/4 of what he said it sounded to me like quotes of
somebody I didn't even want to meet I'm not proposing a kind of socialism I
don't believe in looking into the future and telling you what the society ought
to be people who tell you the future are
usually found in carnivals you pay them a little bit of money they tell you who
you'll be sleeping with in two weeks and you giggle if you actually take
seriously what they've proposed you need help I'm not proposing what a socialism
would look like number one I'm talking about how you get
beyond what we have because like in all societies you are either satisfied with
the way things are or you're looking for how to make them better if there's a
genius in the United States it's been that we've been willing in many areas to
do better but there's a taboo when it comes to economics represented by what
gene said that you really shouldn't look at that because it's only going to get
worse those nasty politicians will do all the terrible things that should make
you stay with what you have oh yes tinker with the Federal Reserve or here
but don't change the fundamentals where did that come from
where did the economic system get a pass we debate about family life we debate
education we debate our transportation system but debate the fundamental
structure of capitalism which is not about markets and not about the
government but how you organize the production and distribution of the goods
and services without which you cannot live slavery did it with masters and
slaves feudalism did it with lords and serfs capitalism does it with employers
and employees and the whole purpose of my book and the
work that we do and the New Directions of socialism is to question and
transform that no more group of employers telling us all what to do and
employees living in that undemocratic workplace and the whole notion of
controlling the government so it doesn't oppress you in all the ways that Jean
likes to enumerate is to create a social force at the base of society that could
possibly prevent that and making the mass of people in the workplace have the
final say and power over what that workplace does means you don't have a
small group of people in a government cutting a deal with a small group of
people called employers at the expense of a large group of people called
employees that's the transformation at the base of society that will mark the
21st century's socialism so that all the old arguments against the social isms of
the passed arguments predicated on what's wrong with the government and the
overwhelming power of the government they're not relevant anymore because the
thrust of socialism is at the base of society not at the level of government
there's a reason Karl Marx wrote no books about the state and endlessly
studied the production and distribution of goods and services because that's the
core of the economy he wanted to take us beyond and that's the problem we have we
have let that go as if there's something necessary or holy or sacrosanct about
that way of organizing production so we all take it for granted we shouldn't we
never should have the impulse to democracy ought to have been applied in
the workplace and as for the arguments gee you wouldn't want to go to all those
meetings those were the arguments of the Kings
we don't need democracy the mass of people haven't the time or the interest
or the intellect or the educate or the training or the come on we ought
to recognize those kinds of arguments against change for what they are they're
fearful so we're going to stay with what we have the capitalism that we have
producing the very humorous takes on mr. Trump or mr. Johnson in England as the
expressions of a system spinning out of control in part because we don't face
that the basic organization of production has been given a free pass
and is what's holding us back thank you thank you Richard gene please you've got
five minutes
well Richard wrote a book called democracy at work a cure for capitalism
it was published seven years ago I read it quite recently Richard probably
hasn't read it very recently that's where at least commendably
commendably he's written a whole book a book by the way that Karl Marx never did
write about the socialism that he wants and I quoted copiously from that book in
my initial talk if Richard is now going to say oh well you know that book it's a
chun-yan forget that book just you know try to recognize that socialism is
preferable to some of the crap that goes on now then we'd have to say Richard
we've been hearing that for over a century
you know from socialists then we had the Soviet Union this Stalin and we had in
mouth we had we've had a lot of mess from your socialism you got to be a
little bit more specific before we get the least bit interested in something
that has been so disastrous for humankind so I want to get Richard back
on the straight and narrow and take him seriously that he's proposing something
with a nuts and bolts definition workers self-directed into
and the embarrassing thing for Richard as it was for Marxist right back to the
time of Marx is that they're selling something that workers don't seem to
want we we had socialism in Israel we had 5% of the other the other country
who really was socialist I trust that Richard would agree that the kibbutzim
of Israel were five percent of them live really worst socialist in a true sense
the bottom up cents and that's what I'm proposing now of course what also
happened to Israel as Richard probably knows as you probably know is that those
kid would seem just fell apart they don't exist anymore people lose interest
in it but again what we are saying we libertarians are saying go for it
workers self-directed enterprises you do have coops Richard Richard in another
mood say hey look you've got coops it speaks to to were to needs and desires
and indeed maybe it does then go for it but then let's build it from the ground
up just like I'm proposing and then we have a system of capitalism do I want to
keep the flawed system of capitalism the system that fights that the political
system that protects the powerful no capitalism is a system of profit and
loss profits encourage risk-taking losses encourage proves that prudence
that's the system now we abrogate that for the counter crony capitalist system
that's what brought about the housing bubble that caused the Great Recession
the week I'm quoting Noam Chomsky a guy I also like by the way even though he's
a socialist we we to to a to great extent we privatize profits and we
socialized losses that's what the Federal Reserve does that's what it's
all about do I want to sit back and like in a system by God no we have a crony
capitalist system by the way that shafts people of limited means most of all that
defends the rich and powerful and there have been victories against it we we
used to have an airline cartel prepped protected by the Civil Aeronautics Board
then somebody noticed that where the CA B didn't dominate a flight between LA
and San Francisco in the same state cost half what it cost
to fly from Washington to Boston or Washington DC rather to Boston same
distance twice as expensive because of government so then they abolished the CA
via the CA B and they and and there was competition in the airlines and that was
a huge victory for middle-income people so victories can be one of Richard I
want to recruit you to change this system of capitalism if you'll excuse
the expression that my socialist uncle Abe used to use as a but I use it as a
contraction for crony capitalism we need more capital some yet not less we need
to change things Richard could join us or he could focus
on building his workers self-directed enterprises from the ground up building
on top of the co-op movement the employee ownership movement which by the
way already gets tax breaks that I don't necessarily object to that already gets
those breaks go for it turn everybody onto worker self-directed enterprises
and they're perfectly compatible it's just like being in business for yourself
that's all it is it's a great idea it hasn't really caught on but maybe it
has potential I welcome it thanks very much
right Thank You Jean Epson and Richard Wolffe
we're now ready to do the audience Q&A we have a couple of microphones set up
please walk up to them I am going to be I realize that each of you probably on
some level view the other as a Nazi I am going to be which is wrong on both
counts but I'm gonna be a Nazi I'm gonna ask you to state a question we don't
want to hear a lot of speeches we want to hear questions direct them to either
or both people debaters so let's go and we're gonna start right now go first
question hello my name is I'm from Germany native German and it took me 35
years and winning the green card Audrey for learning what libertarianism is I
studied social science and okay thank
you what's it I would like to know from mr.
wolf why he thinks that it was not possible for me to learn about
libertarianism and to many of the majority even though I studied social
science and taught it for several years at high school
yeah I'm not 38 years old and it took me moving here but you learn it obviously
before you you learned about Marxism before you even left high school because
if you if you know about the term when you start studying I would say it was
much easier for you to find out about the other side than me okay that studied
social science and thank you hearted okay thank you Richard please use a
microphone hold one up and I I guess the it should be on could you can you hear
me yes okay so the question was basically all in BS on the idea that you
couldn't learn about Marxism and the question was that I really could or that
you want to know why
okay so he took a long time he said you took a very short time libertarianism is
harder to learn about that Marxism and I never indicated the number of years it
took me to learn Marxism okay Richard can I uh can I uh I'm sorry it took you
a long time if that helps do you do you feel like there is not a free flow of
information in in contemporary America I think that it blows my mind that you
could even say that okay all right thanks okay let me explain economics
departments which is what I know around the United States is where you might
learn Marxian economics you have to go first of all the vast majority of
economics departments in the United States have no person in them who knows
of or teaches a course in Marxian economics number one they don't have
them at all number two the vast majority subscribe
to a basic kind of mainstream economics that's called neoclassical economics
which is the dominant tradition there is a small dissenting group that are called
Keynesian economics because of something that happened in the Great Depression
and the new development of a critical perspective that has nothing to do with
socialism the there's tremendous fights between the neoclassical who are the
majority and the Keynesian who are minority one of the very few things the
two groups can get together on is excluding Marxists that's the way the
American economic system works and since it's the economic economics departments
of our universities that train the politicians who deal with economics the
journalists who do economics and and the people in the top of reaches of business
you have a solid kind of mask if you like of uniformity in which the kinds of
things that a Marxist economist talks about or bizarre for them not because of
their complexity or their newness but because they have no experience
whatsoever in dealing with these things and that
has been true for the entirety of my experience in the American academic
environment where I've been a professor all my life it is a it is a systematic
exclusion of the kinds of ideas that I represent that makes students to this
day not encounter it or if they have a lot of fortitude to have little study
groups on the side at their own expense to learn this kind of material because
this country remains afraid of dealing with that kind of thinking and that kind
of tradition even though the literature for it is massive okay thank you Richard
and and wait Jean I'm sorry hold on can i Richard can I ask does it complicate
that scenario at all that we have at least one major candidate for president
Bernie Sanders who identifies as socialist and has a large turnout I mean
the idea that socialism is somehow suppressed seems like a reach to be
quite honest Bernie Sanders is the first candidate in 75 years not to disown that
title as part of the requirement not to commit political suicide and you want me
in the first time in 2016 that he dared do it breaking that blue I'm supposed to
pretend that the one person so far done it in 75 years undoes what I just said
you got to be kidding okay and Richard I look forward to the first time a major
party candidate actually explicitly as libertarian Jean do you have a comment I
agree with Richard yes yes it's on yeah I agree with Richard that that there's a
lot of mind rot in in in the academic departments on economics most of them
most of these economists basically want to run the world they want to pretend
that economics is a branch of mathematics
it's it's a waste of time for the most part in the age of the Internet
don't let school get in the way of your education there's no excuse not to
inform yourself about a whole range of things including Austrian economics with
which I identify or Marxist economics with which Richard identifies the
Internet offers just an incredible amount lectures from Richard Wolff
himself on the Internet I appear regularly on part of the
problem Dave Smith's show so you want to catch that to learn economics the the
intelligent way that whatever you really learn you teach yourself anyway don't
write school get in the way thank you and there's it might uh it might be
interesting we're gonna go to the next question to think there's by my count I
think there's two Marxist economics departments in the country there's one
at Notre Dame and one at UMass Amherst there's about two Austrian programs of
now maybe three so we're as Dave Smith pointed out we're all losers in this
room we have that in common we're in the same club okay question let
me just briefly correct it there was at Notre Dame a department that program was
destroyed about eight or nine years ago and doesn't exist
and the program at University of Massachusetts where I taught has ejected
most of the Marxist that were there there were half a dozen and so it is now
really better described as a Keynesian or left-wing Keynesian program thank you
there is no Marxist department in the United States there are only scattered
old one you're in there get those workers building up from the ground
let's go ok question sir no preamble no we don't care where you're from for all
strangers here it's the French Foreign Legion just ask the question this
question is for Richard in there 100% capitalist society laissez-faire
capitalist arty burners there's no federal reserve you would be well within
your rights to be a socialist all you need to do is band together with other
socialists and form your own community whereas if I want to be a capitalist in
a social society I would be forbidden from doing so why why do you want to
force everyone to be a socialist why not let the capitalist be capitalist let the
socialist be socialist everyone's happening thank you
which first of all in whatever socialist societies you're referring to and the
major one in the world today is the People's Republic of China that uses
that name they are busily encouraging people to
form and develop capitalist enterprises so the premise of your question is is
wrong number one number two I never said and would not argue that in a society
that is in transition as I believe capitalism is there are all kinds of
spaces for them to be enterprises organized in the old traditional
capitalist way and enterprises organized as worker cooperatives in the new
direction I would expect that kind of coexistence to continue to be filled
with tensions and difficulties much as capitalist enterprises began in
feudalism and existed in a tense relationship until the transition
happened further so my presumption is there will be coexisting different
structures in whatever name you give to these societies in transition look in in
line with the Jones question again under capitalism property rights of firms are
protected so if there's a worker co-op owned democratically by the workers and
they're all directing it their property rights will be protected if it catches
on and the entire economy is worker coops I say that's great that sounds
terrific I'll run your own enterprise some of the other things richard
proposes which would be the iron fist to the state having to do with finance that
I object to however it was an article in the National Review well under William F
Buckley the right-winger welcoming worker ownership I know that article
well because I wrote it and so again we're not arguing about that what
Richard doesn't really want to do I know for example he likes jeremy corbyn's
idea another kind of top-down plan where you can sneaked up this kind of thing
through the back door go for it there are co-ops they'll already exist so in
line with whether gentlemen said we already have what you're talking about
we have worker coops we have a huge blend and if it tilts toward more worker
ship wonderful okay next question please sir hi my question is for Richard as
well one of the core tenants of libertarianism and capitalism or true
capitalism is the non-aggression principle so my question for you is do
you think that socialism intrinsically violates the non-aggression principle
and if so how can you explain how committing aggression leads to greater
freedom and equality do you want to do a quick description of the definition of
the non-aggression okay all right you want me to yeah sure
so the non-aggression principle is the principle that you're essentially
allowed to do whatever you want as long as you do not commit violent you do not
initiate violence against another person okay I believe Jean Richard okay oh gosh
me too answering please thank you Nick this is Jean Epstein of one-man show
look what's Richards answer Richards answer is well you know you're free to
starve you know under capitalism you know if you don't work you don't get a
job you're gonna starve you know I mean that's
so that's aggression you know so what again you know forgive me but you know
you're coming out at Richard left from left field because he's gonna say that
that clearly the capital system commits aggression because you're gonna starve
unless you get a job and and then of course we have a lot of answers to that
somehow rather well the starvation tends to happen in socialist countries not in
this country but I think I got Richard fired up he's gonna answer you now
you're famous stop I just jumped yes the this remarkable tendency in a
frightened society to assign starvation or deaths I it's the only place in
American culture we're counting dead people seems to be
way to make an argument Jean mentioned it before now it's starving people
before he mentioned the disasters of socialism where millions died what an
interesting argument we're going to count millions dead well what is it that
capitalism's history shows us the worst two wars in human history world war 1 &
2 these were products of competition among capitalist economies weren't they
400 years of colonialism destroying two-thirds of the world were products of
capitalist accumulation and competition what kind of jerk what what kind of
money finish what kind of mentality picks a few examples of admittedly
horrible things that deserve to be criticized but a comparison of death
counts the first book I ever wrote and published Yale University Press was
called the economics of colonialism it studied what Britain did in Kenya
Britain arrived in Kenya in night in 1895 and set up the East Africa
Protectorate and 30 years later 1931 the Depression hit I studied what happened
in Kenya at that time when the British arrived they did a census 4 million
people in 1930 they did another census two and a half million people British
colonialism killed millions of people in one small country multiply that if you
want to do the death count analysis which I find bizarre you're in very
shaky ground attacking socialism on the basis of capitalism and the same kind of
cherry-picking of your examples came with Gene and kibbutzim in in Israel to
work a co-op sometimes fail of course they do do capitalist enterprises
sometimes fail you bet they do all the time this what is this strange remote
kind of choosing your example let me give you a counter example in 1956 a
group of workers we a Catholic priests in the north of Spain
in a little town called Mondragon made a worker co-op the priest led them six
workers 1956 today something called the Mondragon cooperative corporation has
over a hundred thousand workers it's the biggest worker co-op on the
planet it is a great success at the seventh largest corporation in Spain it
is a successful worker co-op two American corporations pay the
Mondragon Corporation to have their scientists working alongside the
scientists in this worker co-op and the name of the two American corporations is
General Motors and Microsoft they understand what those worker coops can
do even if people here have to pick an example where it didn't work out it's as
if I said well capitalism just look at the Ford Edsel make two quick comments
to be discounted again again I like what Richard just said again go for it I only
mentioned the kibbutz scene because obviously the kibbutzim were a
well-known socialist phenomenon it didn't work out
Mondragon did I was a part I was very interested in the worker ownership
movement in the 1980s ironically by the way when I was senior economist in the
New York Stock Exchange I was going to all the meetings we were hearing they
loved Mondragon all the time in the 1980s thirty years have passed and we
don't have a mondo con in the US so I encouraged Richard to go for it
build it capitalism will love it why not so again I'm not trying to discourage
Richard about going for it I'm just saying that he has the means to do it
he can start that revolution right away within the context of capitalism with
respect to the body-count point the only point that's being made in this case and
again I honestly apologize to Richard for backing him in the core in a sense
that he seems to be now defending the state capitalism the objective he wrote
a whole book collaborated in a whole book in which he condemned the Soviet
Union as state capitalist so he doesn't really want
Fenne those old line social and social isms but the difference in terms of body
count is that this was what governments did to their own citizens
these famines because they couldn't run the agriculture right the the worst
getting on top lunatics sociopaths like Joe Stalin and Mao Zedong and Pol Pot
taking over and murdering their own people either through the sin of
commission or omission that's the difference oh god of course the body
count with respect to war two million people you know killed in Iraq and
Vietnam yeah of course our body can't with respect to wars abroad horrible
Richard and I completely agree about that we're talking about the body count
of governments against their own people under socialism ok that's the bad record
we're talking about question sir and by the way if if there are in fact any
women in the room it would be nice to hear from you ok
scoot up to the front of line sir you've got you've got a man bond that's close
enough we're transitioning here yeah I do identify as male and I suspect I will
continue to do so I hope that doesn't discipline
thank you very much to both of you this has been very thought-provoking I have
two short questions primarily Nick what this is Sophie's Choice time pick one of
those questions because the other one is not gonna make it is economic growth
ever undesirable ie does it ever lead to increase suffering either domestically
or abroad and what are we gonna do with AI when it happens in about 20 or 30
years and nobody has jobs very good very good sir okay either of you Richard
absolutely we do not prioritize or we ought not if that's your question to
prioritize economic growth as if it's a uni-dimensional plus it can be as we
learned from ecological sensitivities built up over the last thirty years that
it can be a very dangerous and negative phenomena but in a society that allows
the decision of what to produce and what to invest in to be done on the basis of
a private profit calculation you are hardly in a position
to bring in all of those other issues that have to be dealt with I remember in
my education I was taught of bizarre language which gives it away that there
are we should remember our teachers told us externalities what a wonderful term
something that isn't central to what we're dealing with
it's an externality only slowly to discover that the externality can be
more negative than what's internal is positive capitalism sanctifies the
profit motive that socialism alternative has always said profit is one among a
whole range of objectives and no decisions should be made based on any
one when all the others are equally important to the quality of life I guess
then I won't answer the question about artificial intelligence since that was
the second question be again obviously to me well it was we'll talk later sir
okay it'd be fun to talk about AI but with it look with respect to economic
growth again I first of all know this obviously I am an individual I'm a
libertarian I don't believe there's anything the least bit sacred about
economic growth if people do if people are basically by the way if we all
decided that would prefer to work 20 hours a week then that labor leisure
choice would begin to prevail capitalists would only get us to work
for them we'd be willing to only work part-time and we'd say well it will work
for a little bit less so that it's advantageous to deploy to employ two of
us for 20 hours a week rather than one person for 40 so then we would have a
diminution of resources we would have a shrinkage of the economy wonderful why
not if people only want to work 20 hours a week then we don't have we can compete
we can compete I'd perhaps and want to explain to Richard because the simple
math is that if if full-time workers get to $20 an hour then then we'll just work
for $18 part-time look at two of us for less so
therefore we can opt for living less we make those choices all the time I you
know what what's a what's a Jewish lawyer kiddo couldn't get into Medical
School well I'm Jewish I didn't become a lawyer
or a doctor I chose to be a sloppy-ass journalist I dropped that so therefore
we make those choices all the time it's an individual choice there is nothing
sacred about economic growth with respect to diseconomy externalities we
are individuals we have individual freedom you can't throw garbage on your
neighbor's lawn however my right to move my fist stops at your chin and if a
capitalist is polluting your backyard and causing that harm you should sue
them so therefore we do need a tort system in order to protect against any
individual a choice anything that a firm does or indeed that an individual to us
in order to make sure that they don't harm us in the in the process of
pursuing their own goals that's the best view answer okay thank you Richard quick
quick rebuttal robot I really find it extraordinary this sort of commentary if
we would like to work only shorter hours the history of capitalism is the history
of the struggle of the mass of working people to reduce the length of the
working-day from the 16 hours it was in early
capitalism in england to 14 to 12 to 10 to 8 it's been a struggle at every point
capital is driving people children as well as adults to work incredible hours
workers having to mobilize and fight this is not a matter of the libertarian
notion let's just choose that's not the way the world worked it hasn't worked
that way in the past and it doesn't work now that's a system that imposed those
struggles and all the suffering that went into it until people said no more
we won't work that many hours we won't let you have our children when they're
six that's the history of capitalism and we're not even counting all the injuries
and all the deaths in that game of counting human suffering from a system I
suggested Richard read a book by Stanley a leprechaun which is a whole
history of the labor markets of the of the capitalist markets and it's got a
lot of good facts in it now I believe that one of the things that that Richard
should try to answer is and how was there a whole lot of progress why was
there so much immense progress by Labor's from them from 1870 to 1925 or
indeed he says that wages were rising for decades and the unions are
statistically were negligible government was under when that wasn't honest no I
want to win with one fact there was a 49 hour work week capitalists have 49 hour
work week as of the 1920s as labor as labor got shows the work week fell the
work week fell because in order to get workers to work for you to bid for
workers their labor law at leisure choice was such that they wanted there
is a Marxist myth that there is an inequality no equality between
bargaining between laborers and workers well
that's relied by about a hundred years of history okay for unions became the
least bit of a presence in this economy thank you okay
ma'am please question we're currently in an opioid crisis and the World Health
Organization ranks our health care system 37th in the world do you think
it's still possible for our current system to fix this and how would you
using socialism fix us okay Richard I guess take the first whack at that
picture one of the charming features of the capitalist system has been the
endless effort on the part of virtually all capitalists to try to get more than
the normal surplus out of their workers the difference between the value added
by a worker and what the employer pays the worker that normal surplus if you
like they've always tried to do better by controlling the market or what we
used to call monopolization becoming strong enough to jack the price even
higher to make more profits and one of the ways you do that is to control a
market in this country one the most successful examples is the
medical industrial complex for industries that work together the
insurers the drug companies the doctors and the hospitals and the producers of
medical devices are with it the drugs they've gotten together and they've
produced this situation a where we pay more for medical care than any other
advanced industrial country and the quality of our healthcare is at best
mediocre as the young woman pointed out in our ranking number 37 the solution to
the problem in our medical care is not another law another special federal
program another stop it is a problem in which you have taken something as
important as human health a subjected it to the capitalist profit
motive and be allowed that monopoly to function to coordinate its behavior and
to rip this society off from A to Z and laugh all the way to the bank first of
all we this the solo form in a few months is going to have a debate so
forum debate on the opioid crisis I invite Richard to come free ticket for
you Richard and a free ticket for the young lady who asked question to that
debate basically Richard and I agree about 90%
of the way about the medical care system it's a crony capitalist system it has to
be unraveled you say your your solution though is not to make it fully
socialized but rather to put more market forces in yeah through workers self
directed enterprises if indeed that's the way they want to construct it
because I'm all for those WS des which is by the way what Richard calls okay
very quickly Richard 10 seconds yeah one one theoretical confusion when I talk
about mark capitalism I'm talking about arranging production with employers and
employees as different people in an endless struggle I'm not talking about
markets the confusion between a capitalist organization and a market is
something we ought to get beyond slavery had markets remember we bought and sold
slaves feudalism had markets the market isn't
what's unique about us capitalism is what's unique and that has to do with
the organization of production which is why that's what we go after and that's
the focus of socialism not some dead old stale debate about whether the
government should have more or less influence on the market that's a
different subject okay we have a couple of minutes left I want to enforce
brutally quick question quick answers let's get to through two or three more
of these things sir go ahead Richard can you be more specific about what you're
advocating and can you equivocally say that your vision of socialism will or
will not be mandated by the state
absolutely socialism always understood whatever its moments whatever its
aberrations if you really want to understand where that the notion of the
state being powerful came in a brief summary of the history in the 19th
century socialism basically was born it was the shadow of capitalism it's
capitalism self criticism whenever there's capitalism it produces socialism
the notion that you're going to get out of capitalism by somehow eliminating
socialism reminds me of what Mark Twain said when he read his obituary in the
newspaper the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated
he wrote the reports of the death of socialism are absurd because capitalism
reproduces it so here's my idea we don't need the state because the whole role is
to transform the base of society but just like ever every other emerging
system like capitalism and feudalism the state it was thought can help the
process so the focus of socialists became capture the state either with
parliamentary or revolution and then use it to make the transformation what
happened in the Soviet Union understandably and in China too was you
focused on grabbing the state you managed it
you took the state but then that next step that got delayed and posts
onde and therein lies the problem whose solution is to transform the base of
society which is why there is the focus on the workers becoming their own bosses
in the workplace okay thank you quick let's do one maybe two more questions
sir hi this is a question for mr. Epstein
I was just wondering on our federal domestic tax is the only major way to
fund federal spending repeat the questions on our federal domestic tax is
the only major way to fund federal spending our federal domestic tax is the
only way to tax a way to fund well well empirically no I mean a lot of federal
spending is comes from printing money from the Federal Reserve and obviously a
lot of federal spending comes from borrowing money okay we have time for
one final question we got a couple of kibitzers over here okay ask a quick
question no you're not paying for this microphone okay no I don't well you know
Reagan Reagan take a hike here to ask a question now yeah please thank you my
question is if we're talking about economics how can we have a debate about
which system is better and I've been listening and I new gentlemen once the
word computers and how that impacts on everything I felt like I was listening
to a debate about the mechanical age and I was the bait really was which
platitudes are better socialist platitudes or capitalist platitudes
could you discuss and incorporate a little bit about how the computers and
the electronic age work on the feelings that you have about socialism and the
feelings that you have about capitalism okay let's and that thank you very much
sir and we're going to boot into the computer age right before we go to the
rebuttal we are done with questions so thank you all for standing up you may
now sit down Richard why don't you begin with that
right this is not the answer you probably want but you're gonna get it
anyway you know that's one of the like both
capitalism and social what one of one of the remarkable things in this debate
between capitalism and socialism is the easy way folks who are rendered
uncomfortable by it find another way a tangential argument to focus on as if
they can somehow thereby escape these basic system questions you can't every
major technological change has led to people doing something which if I were
mean-spirited I would call a platitude it's everything is going to be changed
by the jet engine everything is gonna be changed by electricity everything is
gonna be changed by temas tree everything's gonna be you've finished
the technological determinism it used to be called each new invention is going to
radically try no it doesn't it changes things for sure but it doesn't alter the
basic systemic questions that we're talking about they're not platitudes
they're not evasions the focus on the new technology as if it is magically
going to lift us out of these problems it's a mirage it has been that through
the last 200 years of technical breakthroughs and AI and computers don't
change that story thank you may I comment that fat I don't know if there's
a syllable of what Richard said that I do not fully agree with us now
in fact indeed look we've had a computer age for three decades we have ATMs we
have automatic tellers once are infinite and as Richard is indeed is absolutely
correct in saying the way we run our economy is the way we run our economy
Richard and I we agree we have no debating you know what we're going to
let we're gonna stop this phase this was the audience Q&A we now have the people
the two debaters Richard Wolffe and Jean Epstein going into their final
statements they each have seven and a half minutes and again remember that the
proposition the resolution before us is socialism is
preferable to capitalism as an economic system that promotes freedom equality
and prosperity Richard Wolffe you have seven and a half minutes to seal the
deal the first sign that socialism is on its way is that we're having this debate
that we have Bernie Sanders running and he has the name socialist and he doesn't
give it up he doesn't turn away Elizabeth Warren who has very similar
programs she still feels the need to reassure everybody
she likes capitalism Bernie doesn't the reality is up until six years ago my
presence on American media scene was so tiny none of you whatever have heard of
me I've done more public speaking at the invitation of American audiences in the
last four years that I did in the previous 50 yeah the public awareness is
to the right because of the last years of neoliberalism and the orange clown I
understand that but beneath that is a shift to the left in the United States
nothing illustrates it in my mind any better than the remarkable number of
times Jean Epstein told you how he agreed with me
I don't run away from the label socialist and I don't want to away from
the label Marxist either I'm proud of what I've learned from
those traditions but I'm also very clear and I really hope I've gotten that
across that the way the question for this evening was posed is a problem
there is no singular socialism there never was socialism is a large complex
tradition of multiple different notions that are often at great odds with one
another and have had long and bitter disputes
what in the world do you mean by socialism is it that social democracy of
Scandinavia and German and Western European countries is it a socialism
that China or Russia or Cuba talk about is it the focus on transforming
workplaces into worker coops instead of undemocratic hierarchical workplace
kingdoms what do you mean when you talk about socialism the very idea of using
the singular reflects what I tried to say at the beginning we have to
understand we are emerging from a 75 year period in which we didn't learn
about it think about it or discuss it or if we did it was in dismissive cursory
manner that didn't teach Miko anything it's always been an awkward moment when
American tourists go to Europe and discover that in every single European
country socialist parties are big important political institutions I won't
embarrass you by asking you how many of you know that the government in Portugal
today is a coalition of the Portuguese Socialist Party the Portuguese Communist
Party and the Portuguese Green Party and that they've been the government for
quite a few years now I won't embarrass you the last thing I would say is
because of this peculiar fetish Americans
about the government as either being something that's gonna save us all which
is crazy or which is gonna crush us all which is equally crazy governments do
what they do in large part because of the pressure from those who have the
position to shape them one of the problems with the liberal in the old
British sense or the libertarian if you like is that the argument always starts
with the government as if it were a deus ex machina that just has some qualities
of things it does without asking the obvious question why does the government
do this or that or the next thing we're supposed to believe it's built into the
genes of the government that it does certain things the government does what
the press pressure of the society and the way it's
organized make it do every bit as much as what the government does influences
the rest of this society let me conclude by correcting Jean about Jeremy Corbyn
because he's the future in terms of what we're talking about the British Labour
Party the second party in England by the way a party most of whose members
identify as socialists in the British Labour Party there's a commitment
they've made and the commitment goes like this when we're elected one of the
first laws we'll pass is the following any company organised in Great Britain
can continue the way it is as a capitalist enterprise but if it comes to
the following decision either shut down or to move out of Great Britain or to
sell itself to another company or to go public with a with an IPO issuing shares
before it can do that it must give its own workers the right of first refusal
that's the law that the workers can buy the company and convert it into a
democratically run worker cooperative and when everyone says well where in the
world will the workers get the money to do that mr.
McDonald the closest advisor mr. Corbyn has smiles and says the government will
lend it to them why because for the British people to have freedom of choice
between a capitalist undemocratic enterprise on the one hand and a worker
co-op democratic enterprise on the other they have to have some experience of
what they're like both to buy from and to work in and the only way they can
have that experience so they can choose freely between them or what mix they
want of them is if there's a sector that they can buy from and work at so we as
the leaders of Britain have to create the sector so that the free choice of
our people between systems can finally happen that's the role of the government
expanding free choice rather than being represented is imposing something in
that fearful imagery that we all have as if the government is like those nasty
people at the post office who make us wait before they sell us the stamps
thank you
well I agree with Richard that he and I agree with a about a great deal and I
think that's wonderful why do we agree about a great deal
because we're both radicals and radical people do see a lot of evil in our
current society even though I think Richard basically wants to march in the
wrong direction and tonight I've been a little bit
troubled that he often times abandons his own book written seven years ago and
occasionally lapses into defending the old-style socialism's and into falling
back into the mode of saying you know well social does a lot of things let's
just do it and again ignoring the fact that we need to focus focus I guess
again on the old socialism's well take a
controlled experiment Society who the world in history gives us very few East
Germany versus West Germany West Germany mainly capitalist East Germany socialist
impoverished in East Germany under the font foot of the oven of the stassi's in
West Germany capitalist much more affluent much more comfortable in the
democratic society North Korea versus South Korea I need an elaborate on the
differences there Taiwan and Hong Kong versus most of China until China began
to go capitalist so we have the record staring us in the face of the awful
failures of these societies so we want to say goodbye to all that they were
disastrous then we have the social democracies of Europe maybe that's a
waste of time to talk about because they are for most for the most part
capitalist anyway but then we side-scan the Scandinavian countries even though
Norway is there is a country of 5 million people sitting on a huge oil
well basically selling oil to the rest of the world and by the way apparently
worsening global warming and the but we wanted to offend Norway in
Denmark well let's not cherry pick let's look at the whole range of of economies
and the experience in Europe and let's include Portugal Spain Italy Greece
where it's gone very badly the average is very very
unimpressive they used to talk about euro slicker
sclerosis very troubled economies by and large so we want to say goodbye to all
that so now again I want to take Richard literally and talk about his workers
self-directed enterprises well I imagine when you hear him saying employees
becoming their own bosses well you know there are millions of people who are
their own bosses I know I didn't make that up Richard didn't make that up form
a co-op a family-run business all of those things are possible under
socialism and the problem that Richard faces is that by enlarge it hasn't
caught on maybe it has hope so now Richard is
resorting to cheering on out of desperation out of unfortunately not
taking seriously the fact that you want to work there are people by the way who
still are fostering a worker democracy oh god I know I met a lot of those
people they want to start these firms they want to run it that way they think
it's better people are happier doing it wonderful let's do it so now he's now
Richard is championing the plan of Jeremy Corbyn where where where the
government is going to start lending money on advantageous terms to companies
that want to go that wanna go workers self-directed enterprise how
advantageous is that going to be Jeremy Corbyn a very ambitious politician who
by the way is on record as admiring a lot of hard fisted a strong men like you
go shabbos in his and a successor nicolas maduro he might just start
giving it away capitalists might start selling these firms to
people again Richard is looking for the top-down solution to a bottom-up
revolution and I implore him to abandon all that and go to capitalist route with
his plans now then finally I tried to take seriously what he wrote
book he wants to socialize finance he wants to put it on under a political
thumb he wants to he wants to socialize labor allocation he wants to tighten the
the government's control over those two sources of enterprise expansion so that
dissident publications would suffer but innovation would suffer all of those
things would set us back in terms of prosperity and freedom and and again I
guess you know I mentioned equality I might ask you the old you know 1020
question would you prefer a society in which the top 1% gets 20% richer and the
other 99% the rest of us get 10% richer or would you prefer that's more
inequality or would you prefer a society in which the top 20% get poorer and the
bottom I know suits me yeah yeah the top 20% get poor and the 99% get 10% poorer
we all get poorer but then since the top 1% is getting 20% poor that narrows
equality well we want actually because extremes touch and Richard and I believe
in individual rights I want people to make their own choices about how they
live their lives the professions they lead where they want to work and what
they do and capitalism offers that potential but it can indeed evolve we do
need to free up the housing markets that which are under the thumb of the crony
capitalist we do indeed and that is hurting poor people preventing them from
moving into high wage cities like New York and Los and Los Angeles and San
Francisco we need to free up the guild systems that make it hard for poor
people to get other kinds of jobs the licensing system that protects people
that that prevents poor people from moving into better jobs there are a
whole lot of radical things we need to do to change our economy but we need to
keep keep the fundamental freedoms under capitalism capitalism private property
is necessary although not sufficient to a free and open society it's not
sufficient because government can always come in and jail you the day after you
publish something you don't like just like Obama
tried but but it's necessary it's necessary because if you give somebody
like Obama some political leader control over your property over the means of
production then you make it hard even to function in the first place you make it
hard for Richard to sell those books you make it hard for the sole form to
operate you make it hard for Jacobin magazine to operate and that's why you
have to vote against Richards resolution but Richard does 7 out workers self
directed enterprises capitalist and offers it to you Richard I say go for it
thanks very much